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Astick PC orPC on a stick is asingle-board computer in a small elongated casing resembling a stick, that can usually be plugged directly (without an HDMI cable) into anHDMI video port. A stick PC is a device which has independent CPUs or processing chips and which does not rely on another computer. It should not be confused with passive storage devices such asthumb drives.
A stick PC can be connected to a peripheral device such as amonitor,TV, or kiosk display to produce visual or audio output. Stick PCs generally have limited computing power and are not suited for intensive tasks, but can be suitable in other applications that do not require such power.
The stick PC was first introduced in 2003. TheGumstix, which came out that same year, used theARM architecturesystem on a chip (SoC) and theLinux 2.6kernel.Windows CE can be installed on this stick. It was based on the idea of making a PC similar in size to that of an averagestick of chewing gum.[1]
As the popularity of smart TVs and set-top boxes to view streaming services (such as theRoku) grew, companies started looking at making these small computers even smaller and easier to use.
Several stick PCs using ARM architecture SoCs were introduced around 2012, made of sticks pluggable in anHDMI port, including theAndroid Mini PC MK802 series from Rikomagic, usingAndroid orLinux distributions, both based on Linux andAllwinner Technology orRockchip SoC[2][3] andCotton Candy, usingSamsung Exynos SoC.[4]
2013-2014 saw several manufacturers come out with stick PCs. MeeGoPad released the first x86 based stick PC, featuring the Intel Atom Z3735F Processor.[5] In April 2013,Tronsmart released the MK908, using the Rockchip RK3188 (featuring the quad-coreARM Cortex-A9 and ARM Mali-400MP GPU). On July 24, 2013, Google introduced theGoogle Chromecast, a streaming device similar in function and design to a stick PC.[6][7] On November 19, 2014, Amazon released a smaller version of theAmazon Fire TV called the Fire TV Stick.
In March 2015, ASUS and Google introduced theChromebit, a stick PC based on theRockchip RK3288 SoC and running Google'sChromeOS.[8]
In 2016, Intel introduced theIntel Compute Stick.[9] It was discontinued in June 2020.[10]
In July 2017, Intel released theMovidius Neural Compute Stick which included aVision Processing Unit for vision-specificAI workload.[11] In January 2018, theLaceli AI Compute Stick came out, including a neural network processor unit for AI workload calledLightspeeur 2801S Neural Processor, and claiming to be more powerful and more energy-efficient than the Movidius.[12] In November 2018, the Orange Pi AI Stick 2801 came out, also featuring theLightspeeur 2801S Neural Processor.[13]
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